IFLA Working Programme 02 - Children and Youth

Goal: Advocate for child-friendly and youth orientated spaces in landscape design, promoting play, learning, and social development.

Impact: Create stimulating and inclusive environments that support the physical, cognitive, and social development of children and youth.

Working Programme Members

director - Sarah Little

Sarah Little is a registered landscape architect in North Carolina. For 10 years she has worked as a landscape designer in the design slash build field creating high end residential landscapes. She's also designed children’s play environments and park master plans involving issues of environmental justice and community participation. Sarah obtained a PhD in design from North Carolina State University. Her research broadly focuses on understanding the influence of the design of the physical environment on human development. Her current research projects include linking human attachment with place attachment, understanding the link between natural environments and autonomy, and developing observational scales for behaviour mapping..

CO-DIRECTOR - MERHAM. M. KELEG

Merham Keleg is a landscape researcher and urban designer committed to advancing landscape research from Africa and the Global South. She is an Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Planning at Ain Shams University, where her work brings together landscape research, urban design, and environmental governance to explore more inclusive and climate-responsive urban futures.

Her research explores how relationships between people, nature, and place are shaped and transformed through processes of urbanisation, environmental change, and governance. Within this broader enquiry, she investigates placemaking, green infrastructure, landscape governance, and participatory approaches to climate adaptation, with particular attention to under-studied urban contexts in Cairo and across Africa. She is interested in strengthening connections between communities, research, practice, and policy, while developing more locally grounded and context-sensitive approaches to landscape knowledge.

Merham is a Trustee and Research Coordinator of the Landscape Research Group, an Associate Editor of Landscape Research, and an editor of the forthcoming third edition of the Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies. She also serves as the African Research and Impact Network (ARIN) Focal Point for North Africa.

Through her work with IFLA Children & Youth, she advocates for bringing children’s and young people’s lived experiences and perspectives into landscape planning and design, recognising their importance in shaping meaningful and enduring relationships between people, nature, and place.

Other members of Working Programme 02

Dana Luse

Elsadira Suciana

Ilze Janpavle

Oarabile Chingapane

Wafa Abusaif

Wendy Hoddinott

Yiwei Huang